UMH Rewards Investors With 4.7% Dividend Hike: Is it Sustainable?

UMH Properties, Inc. UMH announced a 4.7% increase in the company’s quarterly common stock dividend, raising it to 22.5 cents per share from 21.5 cents paid earlier. The increased dividend will be paid out on June 16 to shareholders on record as of May 15, 2025.

Based on the increase, the annual dividend rate now comes to 90 cents per share, resulting in an annualized yield of 4.82%, considering UMH Properties’ closing price of $18.69 on April 1, 2025.

Solid dividend payouts remain the biggest enticements for REIT investors, and UMH Properties is committed to boosting shareholder wealth. Prior to this increase, UMH had increased its dividend four times in the last five years, with an annualized dividend growth rate of 4.04% for this period. Check UMH Properties’ dividend history here.

Per Samuel A. Landy, president and CEO of UMH Properties, “We are pleased to announce a fifth consecutive annual increase of our common stock dividend. Revenue growth continues to meet our expectations. Over time, we expect our community expansions and new community construction to further increase profits. We are well-positioned for internal growth as well as having a strong balance sheet that makes future acquisitions possible.”

UMH’s Solid Fundamentals & Fina

This residential REIT’s ability to provide competitively priced quality homes is likely to help it witness healthy rental demand in the upcoming period, especially in a market where the gap between buying and renting is expected to continue in the following quarters. Its communities continue to experience strong demand for both sales and rentals.

UMH Properties maintains a healthy balance sheet. As of Dec. 31, 2024, the company had $99.7 million of cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities of $31.9 million. Moreover, its trailing 12-month return on equity is 4.28% compared with the industry’s average of 2.70%. This reflects that the company is more efficient in using shareholders’ funds than its peers.

Supported by its solid fundamentals and decent financial position, the company is expected to continue with efficient capital deployment activities. Through this, UMH Properties will keep enhancing shareholder value.

Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have declined 0.3% over the past six months compared with the industry’s fall of 3.7%.

Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the residential REIT sector are Modiv Industrial, Inc. MDV and Elme Communities ELME.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Modiv’s 2025 FFO per share is pegged at $1.36, which indicates year-over-year growth of 1.5%. MDV currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

ELME carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Elme’s full-year FFO per share is 95 cents, which indicates an increase of 1.1% from the year-ago period.

Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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